ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the dynamic interactions between environmental and human forces which have had serious implications for health in Alexandria and the Nile Delta over the centuries. It explores some of the diseases and epidemics which afflicted the people of Alexandria and will describe the consequences of environmental factors, such as changing irrigation patterns, on public health in the region. Plague is a bacterial disease primarily occurring in animals. Disease transmission occurs when humans stray into an environment where plague exists as an epizootic infection in animals. Cholera is environmental disease which had a profound affect on public health in Alexandria. Smallpox is another disease which has had devastating consequences in Alexandria throughout history. Another environmental disease which has had a profound effect on the health of the people of the Nile Delta for centuries is schistosomiasis, or bilharzia. Analysis of data from the Schistosomiasis Research Project has given us a better understanding of the epidemiology of the disease.
